​Semi-arid Southern California's residents saved a record amount of water last year, more than 1 million acre feet, according to the Metropolitan Water District, the region's biggest water wholesaler.​

​California water officials have approved $34.4 million in grants to eight desalination projects across the state, including one in the East Bay city of Antioch, as part of an effort to boost the water supply in the wake of the state's historic, five-year drought.​

​They gathered this week at Sacramento's federal building on Capitol Mall, carrying protest signs and vowing to resist the Trump administration's plan to pump more of Northern California's water through the Delta to the southern half of the state.​

​California officials have moved closer to scaling back the troubled Delta tunnels project, officially notifying potential construction contractors that they're considering limiting the project to one tunnel.​

​Colorado mountain snowpack shrunk to record-low levels this week, raising concerns about water supply, and some federal authorities calculated even big late snow — if it falls — may not make up for the lag.​

​California regulators on Tuesday approved a plan to spend nearly $400 million over 10 years to slow the shrinking of the state's largest lake, a vital migratory stop for birds and a buffer against swirling dust in farming towns.​

​Hydrologist Mark Hanna stood on the North Broadway Bridge recently and gazed out on an industrial vista of treated urban runoff flowing down the Los Angeles River channel between graffiti-marred concrete banks and train trestles strewn with broken glass.​

​If two massive, 40-mile long, 40-foot-diameter tunnels that would direct Sacramento River water around the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Central and Southern California are too big, too expensive and too scary to contemplate, how about splitting the difference and going with a single tunnel?​

​Indian tribes in our arid region need access to reliable water to continue to live on reservation lands. This session, I jointly wrote Assembly Bill 1361 with Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D – Coachella, to streamline water deliveries to Indian reservations throughout California.​

​The Coachella Valley's largest water agency voiced support for California's proposed $17.1 billion plan to build two water tunnels beneath the Delta, even as key questions about the project remain unanswered — including how much customers would end up paying.​

​Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California took the opportunity to give voice to the love of water conservation in a new media campaign called "H2 Love Letters."​

​An internationally recognized purification system credited with turning wastewater into drinkable water in Orange County will begin the final stage of expansion with a $124 million investment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, officials announced Wednesday, July 19.​

​In Santa Clara County, 40 percent of the water we need for our families, businesses and to grow our local food comes from the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta. But the infrastructure that delivers this water is aging, at risk of collapse and subject to continual supply cutbacks due to the deteriorating condition of the Delta.​

​The governor's proposed Delta tunnels ran into a roomful of skeptics Monday – an influential group of San Joaquin Valley farmers who remain unconvinced the controversial project will deliver the water they need at a price they're prepared to swallow.​

​A new bill in the state Legislature would require California to review the environmental impacts of a company's proposal to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and sell it to Southern California cities — a controversial plan that was slowed down by President Obama, but which appears to have the backing of the Trump administration.​

​The Delta tunnels got a crucial green light from two federal agencies Monday when scientists said the controversial project can co-exist with the endangered fish that inhabit the waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.​

​Gov. Jerry Brown won crucial early approval from federal wildlife officials Monday for his $16 billion proposal to re-engineer California's north-south water system, advancing his plan to build two giant tunnels to carry Northern California water to the south even though much about the project remains undetermined.​

​Federal wildlife agencies gave the controversial Delta tunnels a partial approval on Monday, announcing that the $17 billion project to replumb the dying estuary will not jeopardize threatened and endangered fish.​

​The San Diego County Water Authority – and San Diego ratepayers – were dealt a major legal loss this week that could leave local water customers back on the hook for billions of dollars over the next several decades.

​The San Diego County Water Authority – and San Diego ratepayers – were dealt a major legal loss this week that could leave local water customers back on the hook for billions of dollars over the next several decades.​

​For the first time in the Western Hemisphere, the public will receive bottles of highly purified wastewater, demonstrating the safety and technological advancements of sophisticated treatment systems that now provide new sources of drinking water, officials announced.

​San Diego County Water Authority directors have met behind closed doors more than three times a week on average since the start of the year, putting the agency on pace to surpass last year's tally of gatherings that critics say could run afoul of open-meetings laws.

​Jerry Brown took an Old English turn from his Latin wisdom in 2012 by declaring: “I want to get s--- done,” a reference to his vision for building two tunnels 30 miles long to move Sacramento River water south from the Delta to the rest of the state.

​Officials in Arizona have reached an impasse on a multistate agreement aimed at storing more Colorado River water in Lake Mead, but Southern Nevada Water Authority chief John Entsminger said he is confident the deal will still get done.

​The Riverside County board of supervisors, who act as the board of the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District, approved a Memorandum of Intent between the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District, the Valley-Wide Recreation and Park District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the city of Hemet and the Eastern Municipal Water District, regarding the Diamond Valley Lake Recreation Area.

​Design flaws, construction shortcomings and maintenance errors caused the Oroville Dam spillway to break apart in February, according to an independent analysis by Robert Bea for the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UC Berkeley.

​A series of late-season storms has vaulted this winter into the history books, making it the wettest winter for California's northern Sierra Nevada in nearly a century of record-keeping, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

​A state-commissioned report on climate change released Wednesday raises the stakes for fighting global warming, offering a clearer and, in some cases, more catastrophic picture of how much sea levels will rise in California.​

​The drought officially ended in most of California on Friday, but state officials vowed to clamp down on wasteful water use and impose a long-term conservation program that could create friction with urban water users.

​Southern California's most powerful water agency is prepared to invest in Sacramento Valley's proposed Sites Reservoir, a move that could broaden support for the $4.4 billion project but also raise alarms about a south state "water grab."​

​To understand how climate change is creating a world of extremes, look to California, where the reality of severe drought coupled with intense precipitation threatens millions of residents, a rich ecosystem and the dated infrastructure designed to protect them.

​The main spillway at Oroville Dam is riddled with design flaws and so badly damaged that an independent panel of experts hired by the state has concluded it's probably impossible to repair the structure completely before the next rainy season begins in November.

​California officials have temporarily resumed using the damaged main spillway at Lake Oroville, marking an important milestone in efforts to get the vast state reservoir back to normal after a near collapse last month.

​During one of this winter's frequent storms, sheets of rainwater spilled from roofs, washed across sidewalks and down gutters into a sprawling network of underground storm drains that empty into the Los Angeles River channel.

​State officials said Wednesday that Californians reliant on water pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta won't face supply shortages, even as crews shut down a massive pumping station that serves much of Southern California for at least a month to make repairs to its intake reservoir.

​During one of this winter's frequent storms, sheets of rainwater spilled from roofs, washed across sidewalks and down gutters into a sprawling network of underground storm drains that empty into the Los Angeles River channel.

​The recent election may have changed the dynamic in Washington, but the facts on the ground in the California desert remain the same: The Cadiz water mining project poses a grave threat to the California desert and should not be approved.

​Here's a cold, wet reality: the more water in California's reservoirs, the less urgency there is to build new ocean-water desalination plants that became a major talking point during the state's long, parched years of drought, an ultra-dry period some folks insist has still not ended despite months of heavy rains.

​Water distribution agencies from across Southern California reacted with alarm after state officials announced recently that free-floating microscopic larvae of an invasive mussel had been found in water samples collected from a State Water Project pipeline that connects Silverwood Lake and Lake Perris.

​Plunging the long, metal rod into the snow beneath his feet in the mountain town of Phillips, state snow survey chief Frank Gehrke measured the Sierra Nevada snowpack Wednesday not against California's recent, historic drought but against its biggest rain years.

​Until a few weeks ago, the McCormack-Williamson Tract in the California Delta was an island of low-lying farmland, more than two square miles protected from the surrounding rivers and sloughs by earthen levees.

​For the first time ever, heavy winter rains have filled the Las Virgenes Reservoir in Westlake Village to the brim, causing the excess water to flow through a spillway that has never been used before.

​As heavy winter storms continue to hammer California, the Legislature is launching a review of dam and levee safety and bracing for major investments necessary to shore up flood control throughout the state.

​Jeffrey Mount, a leading expert on California water policy, remembers the last time a crisis at the Oroville Dam seemed likely to prompt reform. It was 1997 and the lake risked overflowing, while levees further downstream failed and several people died.

​How did a giant, gaping hole tear through the massive Oroville Dam's main concrete spillway last week, setting in motion the chain of events that could have led to one of America's deadliest dam failures?

​Federal emergency officials approved Gov. Jerry Brown's requests to pay for winter storm damages and to support California's unfolding response to the emergency at the distressed Oroville Dam, the White House announced Tuesday

​State engineers have found new damage to the Oroville Dam spillway, although not as much as they'd feared, after conducting two test releases to see how much water the scarred facility could handle, the state said Thursday.

​Until Donald Trump won the presidency, prospects looked bleak for Cadiz, a California company that has struggled for years to secure federal permits to transform Mojave Desert groundwater into liquid gold.

​Roaring storms that brought California almost a year's worth of snow and rain in a single month should make state water managers' Sierra snowpack survey Thursday a celebration, marking this winter's dramatic retreat of the state's more than 5-year-drought, water experts say.

​After a month of huge blizzards and "atmospheric river" storms, the Sierra Nevada snowpack — source of a third of California's drinking water — is 177 percent of the historic average, the biggest in more than two decades.

​The third in a series of powerful winter storms unleashed a deluge in Southern California on Sunday, flooding numerous roads and freeways, setting new rainfall records and stranding some in dangerously rising waters.

With storms drenching much of California and snow blanketing the Sierra Nevada, the state’s top water regulators are grappling with how to shift from conservation rules devised during more than five years of drought to a long-term strategy for using water more sustainably.

​Despite a wet winter that has much of California emerging from drought, state officials are showing no sign that they'll ease up on water regulations imposed on cities and towns over the past three years.

​The state’s biggest reservoirs are swelling. The Sierra Nevada have seen as much snow, sleet, hail and rain as during the wettest years on record. Rainy Los Angeles feels more like London than Southern California.

​A large-scale effort to purify wastewater and inject it into groundwater basins could feasibly produce enough water to serve 335,000 homes, according to a study released by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

​The third and latest storm to hit the state within a week is expected to inundate rivers in Northern California and flood parts of Napa Valley wine country, while also blanketing the frigid Sierra Nevada in heavy snowfall, according to state officials.

Amid the upcoming confirmation hearings for the president-elect’s Cabinet appointees, pending congressional debate on the Affordable Care Act and any number of other front-burner issues, a matter that won’t come to a head for seven months might not seem like an urgent priority for Donald Trump and his team.

​Two weeks before President Barack Obama leaves office, his administration vowed to move full speed ahead on California's controversial Delta tunnels project, calling it essential for the state's water supply as well as its environment.

​Municipal water agencies deny that the sole purpose of tiered pricing — in which users pay more per gallon as they use more gallons — is to encourage conservation, but such rate structures just happen to provide fair and sensible incentives for Californians to use their most precious public resource wisely and with respect for its scarcity.

​After years of working on water, environment and agriculture issues in California, it remains a mystery to me why the appointed State Water Resources Control Board and several other environmental boards and commissions so often don't understand the pushback from ordinary Californians on their regulatory agenda.

​Public water agencies throughout California are looking to spend billions of dollars in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to address a fundamental physical reality: The existing water system in the southern Delta poses an intractable environmental problem.

​With the prospect of reduced Colorado River deliveries as early as 2018, U.S. and Mexican negotiators have been in a race against the clock to forge an agreement that involves sharing any future shortages — and are hoping for a signing before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20th.

​The number of dead trees in California's drought-stricken forests has risen dramatically to more than 102 million in what officials described as an unparalleled ecological disaster that heightens the danger of massive wildfires and damaging erosion.

​Despite five consecutive years of drought, record-setting heat and water being diverted to protect the state's native fish population, Southern California's top urban water agency said Monday it has enough water stored up for nearly five years.

​The Sacramento Bee's editorial board suggests that it would be proper state policy to wring the last drop of water out of California's food producers ("Stop farms from grabbing all the groundwater," Editorial, Sept. 30).

​Californians' water conservation slipped for the third consecutive month in August, prompting new alarm from regulators about whether relaxed water restrictions may be causing residents to revert to old habits as the state enters its sixth year of severe drought.

​This summer, as temperatures soared and depleted groundwater turned the San Joaquin Valley into a collection of sinkholes, state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, put forth legislation to fast-track conservation of underground water supplies.

​Drive through rural Tulare County and you'll hear it soon enough, a roar from one of the hundreds of agricultural pumps pulling water from beneath the soil to keep the nut and fruit orchards and vast fields of corn and alfalfa lush and green under the scorching San Joaquin Valley sun.

​Not many simple statements can be made about the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, except these: It's hard to overstate the importance of the region's resources to California – or the complexity of sharing those resources.

​In a move that foreshadows sweeping statewide reductions in the amount of river water available for human needs, California regulators on Thursday proposed a stark set of cutbacks to cities and farms that receive water from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries.

​In the coming days and weeks, some of the implications of climate change and the need to improve California’s aging water delivery system will become more evident to all parts of the state, none too soon.

​Locked in a multi-year drought, California's urban water suppliers have, for the most part, happily enforced rules that prohibit specific wasteful water practices, such as hosing down driveways and over-watering lawns.

​Driving through Beverly Hills one afternoon this spring, I pulled over at a corner lot with a tennis court, a pool, a guest house, twenty towering sycamore and redwood trees, and an acre of emerald grass.

​The Obama administration unveiled initiatives to help restore the Salton Sea and improve the region's climate resilience, economy and public health as part of President Barack Obama's visit to Lake Tahoe Wednesday.

​California's top water guzzlers — the people who use tens of thousands of gallons more than their neighbors to keep lawns bright green during serious droughts — could soon be hit with higher water bills and their names made public if the drought continues.

​A drone whirred to life in a cloud of dust, then shot hundreds of feet skyward for a bird's-eye view of a vast tomato field in California's Central Valley, the nation's most productive farming region.

​People in the Coachella Valley continued to save substantial amounts of water in July, even after California regulators relaxed drought measures and gave water districts a reprieve from state-imposed conservation targets.

​State officials will not force most California water districts to reduce water use this year, even as they caution that the five-year drought persists and note that drought-fueled wildfires continue to wreak havoc.

​With the dual goals of cutting carbon emissions and reducing operational costs, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a state-established cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies serving nearly 19 million people in six counties, has unveiled its latest investment in solar power.

​With conservation cutting into demand, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California used nearly 16 acres of land originally set aside for additional water production for a solar farm at its F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in La Verne.

​Earlier this summer, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association gave its Golden Watchdog award to the Carlsbad Desalination Project, reflecting the group's support "every step of the way" for what many in the environmental community consider the region's biggest boondoggle in recent memory.

​The State Water Resources Control Board has just released the first month of conservation data under new state rules that emphasize drought preparedness and local discretion regarding conservation activities.

​Scientists from two federal agencies are about to overhaul the rules governing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, potentially increasing protections for endangered fish populations and limiting the amount of water pumped to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.

​Californians conserved less water in June, state officials said Tuesday in releasing results from the first month that statewide drought restrictions were eased after a winter of heavier precipitation in the northern half of the state, which supplies most of the water.

​It might not be what you expect to hear about California agriculture in the throes of drought: After four years of historic water shortages, farm earnings in the state increased 16 percent, and total employment increased 5 percent.

​Recently, the Sacramento Bee invited Jeffrey Kightlinger, General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District, to talk about the California Water Fix and other California water issues in a forum attended by newspaper subscribers and students.

​Representatives of California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Obama administration began making their pitch for approval Tuesday to build a pair of massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

​That question has been asked, often quite loudly, by many Californians in the months since voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, the 2014 water bond that authorized $7.5 billion in funding for various projects and needs, and specifically allocated $2.7 billion for storage projects.

​Now that Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has completed its $175 million purchase of four islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, totaling almost 20,000 acres in size, it is time to engage in a discussion of how Met can be a good Delta neighbor.

​Still swirling in controversy, Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed $15.5 billion re-engineering of the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is heading into a critical phase over the next year that could well decide if the project comes to fruition.

​In a win for the state, the California Supreme Court declared Thursday that the state has the right to go on private property for soil and environmental testing as part of a plan to divert fresh water under or around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on its way to Central and Southern California.

​California officials don't have to pay property owners to access their land and decide whether to move forward with a $15.7 billion plan to build two giant water tunnels that would supply drinking water for cities and irrigation for farmers, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday.

​Southern California's powerful water supplier has completed the $175-million purchase of five islands in the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the ecologically sensitive region that's a key source of water for the Southland.

​California's drought and a bark beetle epidemic have caused the largest die-off of Sierra Nevada forests in modern history, raising fears that trees could come crashing down on people or fuel deadly wildfires that could wipe out mountain communities.

​In a surprising new study, Stanford researchers have found that drought-ravaged California is sitting on top of a vast and previously unrecognized water resource, in the form of deep groundwater, residing at depths between 1,000 and nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of the state's always thirsty Central Valley.

​The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California today released results of an analysis demonstrating it has sufficient water supplies to meet the demand of its member agencies over the next three years, thanks in large part to successful water conservation by Southland residents.

​San Diego imports 80 percent of its water, with the Colorado River supplying about 63 percent, and 20 percent coming from Sierra Nevada runoff funneled from northern California via the State Water Project.

​Last month, state water officials eased conservation mandates in response to slightly above-average winter rain and snow in much of California, leading many to speculate that the state's long-running drought has tapered off.

​Last month, state water officials eased conservation mandates in response to slightly above-average winter rain and snow in much of California, leading many to speculate that the state's long-running drought has tapered off.

​When California officials announced an end to restrictions on urban water use, they cited the recent wet winter as one reason. El Niño, the climate pattern that brought a succession of storms to Northern California, had given the state a reprieve from its water woes, they said.

​Water quality at Southern California beaches has shown marked improvement for the second year in a row in what experts say is a continuing byproduct of the severe drought that has cut polluted runoff into the Pacific Ocean.

​The last time two states went to war over water, it was 1934. The combatants were California and Arizona and the casus belli was the start of construction of Parker Dam, which would direct water from the Colorado River into California via the Colorado River Aqueduct.

​California on Wednesday suspended its mandatory statewide 25 percent reduction in urban water use, telling local communities to set their own conservation standards after a relatively wet winter and a year of enormous savings in urban water use.

​Marking a major shift in California water policy, state regulators Wednesday voted to lift the statewide conservation targets that for the past year have required dramatic cutbacks in irrigation and household water use for the Sacramento region and urban communities across the state.

​Ca California's groundwater is threatened – unsustainable use is causing impacts around the state. Pumping during the drought has been so rapid that changes in groundwater levels can be observed from space.

​Citing the state's improved hydrology and impressive regional conservation, officials at Southern California's massive water wholesaler voted Tuesday to rescind the cuts they imposed on regional water deliveries last year.

​With statewide supplies improving, the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District, the water wholesaler for Southern California, voted today to end a mandatory use-reduction program it imposed on its 26 member agencies to combat the drought.

​The Calleguas Municipal Water District Board of Directors was pleased to read the April 10 commentary by John Laird, state secretary for natural resources, on the California WaterFix proposal to build new intakes and tunnels to safeguard and stabilize water deliveries from the northern Sierra and Sacramento Delta.

​There is talk that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is purchasing four islands and tracts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to construct a reservoir project to divert more water from the estuary.

​With the Colorado River tapped beyond its limits and the level of Lake Mead in decline, representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada say they've been making progress in negotiating an agreement for all three states to share in water cutbacks in order to stave off a more severe shortage.

​Californians concerned about the drought and who want to build more water storage and other critically needed infrastructure should be extremely concerned with an initiative that has qualified for the November ballot.

​Water is once again flowing into Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet for the first time in three years, which will allow boat launches to resume on Southern California's largest reservoir in mid-May, just in time for Memorial Day weekend fishing.

​The California drought is not over. The great hope for major replenishment of California's surface and groundwater supplies — the "Godzilla" El Niño — has failed thus far to live up to its super-sized hype, delivering only average amounts of rain and snow, primarily to the northern half of the state.

​Already viewed with suspicion and hostility in the north state water community, the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is broadening its reach by purchasing $175 million worth of real estate in the very hub of California's water delivery network: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

​In two months, between January and March, more than enough water to supply all the homes in Ventura County for a year slipped down the Sacramento River and out to the ocean after rules to protect the environment and water quality had been met.

​Stanford researchers who studied trends in the atmospheric circulation patterns that affect California's rainfall have found that conditions linked to the hot, dry weather during our latest drought have become more frequent in recent years, according to research published Friday.

​The National Association of Government Communicators has selected Bob Muir, manager of the Press Office of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, as its 2016 Communicator of the Year.

​In a further sign of the easing of California's drought, farms and cities that rely on the State Water Project learned Thursday that they will receive an estimated 45 percent of what they requested this year.

​In what may be an ominous sign for the end of the drought, the El Niño that brought Northern California its wettest winter in five years is continuing to weaken and appears to be giving way to its atmospheric sibling -- La Niña.

​Southern Californians can expect dry conditions and above-average heat this week as a stubborn high-pressure system continues to block the heavily anticipated El Niño rainstorms that weather officials warned of over the winter.

​California residents have been forced to use less water with each passing year, but as drought becomes the new norm, they aren't just conserving, they're revolutionizing the way the state manages its water.

​A few dozen baby salmon that spent the past two weeks contentedly eating – and growing – in the invertebrate stew of a flooded rice field were netted Friday, dumped into coolers and hauled by pickup several miles to a drainage canal and to the Sacramento River.

​As an attempt to balance many competing interests, the water bill that California Democrat Dianne Feinstein introduced in the Senate last week appears well-thought-through and carefully crafted — and as such it is being greeted by many with the kind of lukewarm response that such attempts often receive.

​Sen. Dianne Feinstein has spent two years trying to fashion a bill that would help California deal with its drought, but she has never been able to come up with a proposal that can bridge the gaps between Central Valley Republicans and her fellow Northern California Democrats.

​A new state report shows California farmers reaping record sales despite the epic drought, thriving even as city-dwellers have been forced to conserve water, household wells have run dry and fish have died.

​Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.

​Facing uncertain financing and a ballot measure threatening his $15.5 billion Delta water plan, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday called the project a "fundamental necessity" and said he is confident "we'll get it done."

​Southern California's long-term water resource plan that outlines ways to maintain supply reliability for the next 25 years was updated today by Metropolitan Water District's Board of Directors in the midst of a record statewide drought and increased volatility in the available supplies for the region.

​Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, issues the following statement regarding the draft State Water Action Plan released today by the California Natural Resources Agency, California Department of Food and Agriculture and California Environmental Protection Agency.